Wim Wenders shops for stinky tofu

Stinky tofu is the subject of the day in Taipei as Wim Wenders drops in to mentor and collaborate with a young Taiwanese director. “Taipei, he observed, has grown from “a sleepy city” to become “an amazing, buzzing and big city,” writes Nancy T. Lu in Taiwan News. Among her diverse observations from Wenders’ first visit in 30 years: “I may have to come back a few times more to get used to stinky tofu,” said the smiling Wenders yesterday. One of the first things Wenders did was to go to the Shihda Night Market with young Taiwan-born director Arvin Chen two nights ago [Pictured.] Wenders has accepted the invitation to be the executive producer of Chen’s “Page One Taipei.” He liked the young man’s script, he said. And so he will be his “guardian angel from Germany” in the film project to be subsidized by the Government Information Office by as much as NT$12 million and to be also supported by the Taipei City Government. “I have watched Wim Wenders’ films from childhood and I have seen how he portrays cities and people,” said Chen, who grew up in northern California. “I feel very lucky to have him as my executive producer.” Chen’s “MEI” won the Silver Bear for short film at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival. Wenders said that a Silver Bear from the Berlin International Film Festival is something he has in common with Chen. They also share a love for movies that are portraits of cities, he said. Wenders thought that it was a good idea to have someone not exactly from here but more of a foreigner to do a film about Taipei. This person would have a different perspective, he said. Checking out the locations for the movie Chen is preparing to shoot next year as well as meeting the cast and crew have been on Wenders’ agenda during this Taipei visit. But he will not be around during the actual filming… Mayor Hau offered Wenders and Chen some pineapple cakes yesterday. He also presented the German cinema director with a nice but empty gift box to take back to Berlin. Wenders quickly scribbled “Taipei Memories” on it… Wenders used three words to sum up the movies he made in his career, indicating the films dwelled on “love, search and identity.” The award-winning Wenders gave a remark yesterday, indicating he did not follow the commercial trend to make sex scenes de rigueur in film productions. “I always thought sex didn’t belong in a movie,” said director Wim Wenders. “You never do it with the camera.” Lu differs in her closing note: “Young people, who keep sophisticated digital information systems in their bedrooms, think otherwise though.”

“There are different signs that this is not stopping. I don’t think that anger and frustration and those feelings can go away. I hope they don’t. The attention and support for the victims needs to be continued, more than people worried about these abusers and what’s next for them, how are they going to move on — shut up. You know what? If any of these people come back, I would say, “I can’t wait to see who is actually going to support them.” That is going to be the glaring horror. Who is going to be, like, “This is a pressing issue, and we need to get them back?” If a janitor was so great at cleaning the building but also tended to masturbate in front of people, would the people at that building be like, “Yes, he masturbated, but I’ve never seen anyone clean so thoroughly, and I was just wondering when he’s going to get his job back, he’s so good at it.” No, it would be, “That’s not acceptable.” It’s fame and power that people are blinded by.”
~ Tig Notaro in the New York Times

“It’s never been easy. I’ve always been one of the scavenger dogs of film financing, picking up money here and there. I’ve been doing that all my life. This was one was relatively easy because certain costs have gone down so much. I made this film in 20 days whereas 30 years ago, it would have been made in 42.”
~ Paul Schrader